Many thanks to Dianne Thomas for generously sharing this information with us, on the Candee family.  Dianne has included pictures, as well as the biography of the Candee family of Volney, NY, from  the article, "Grips" Historical Souvenir of Phoenix,  printed in 1903.  Dianne has also included information from the Candee Bible, their marriages, births, deaths, cemeteries where the families are buried, as well as some misc. items on the Candee's.  

Dianne writes: 

Elisha Candee was born in Oxford, Ct, where he married Rebecca Richardson (daughter of Asa Richardson).  They moved to the Albany area and had their first child, Cordelia, who died at a young age and is buried in Albany.  They later moved to the Volney (part of Fulton) area of Oswego County, NY, about 1815.  In 1816 he created his own business and became the first merchant in the Volney (formerly known as the town of Mentz) area.  In the years 1818-1822 he was the Town Clerk. Elisha's son, ASA was born in Volney in 1824.  I have his family bible.

Some of the businessed owned and ooperated by the various Candee family members are the "N.S. Conde & Son Mfgr of Knit Goods", located on Seneca and 5th St in Oswego, 1844.   In 1881 there was the "Wills & Candee Paper Mill" owned by W. Candee. By trade, Leman Candee was a farmer.  He built and managed the first post office addition in Fulton, NY.

The CANDEE family tree was first done by a Mr. Baldwin.  I found the book at the Syracuse library, but there may be one in the Oswego or Fulton libraries. 

     CHARLES WILSON CANDEE, now in his 86th year was born Sept. 19, 1817, in the town of Volney, on the farm which his father, Brazil CANDEE, then owned and occupied, 1 1/4 miles north of Gilbert’s Mills.  The family came from Litchfield, Ct., in the preceding spring, driving a yoke of oxen with a single horse hitched in the lead, all of the way.  Snow was on the ground and they travelled with a sleigh.  The year before, in the spring of 1816, Brazil CANDEE had come to this section prospecting, and being pleased with the country had purchased the land upon which he made a home for his family –a farm of 160 acres covered with virgin forests and afterwards tilled to the highest state of cultivation.  Then he returned east and married Huldah WILSON, bring her back to the new home where she at first found a domicile in a log house situated in a clearing of only five acres.  Her sister married Judge STODDARD, who became a  pioneer settler in the town of Camden, Oneida Co., and was afterwards a distinguished man.  Seven children were born to them, besides Charles W.  One of them, Gay CANDEE, lives in Granby and the other, Augusta, the widow of Henry H. GILBERT, resides in Phoenix.  The three are all that are living.  The oldest sister, Julia, married Charles S. SWEET.  Artinicia and Artaminta were twins.  The former married Constance B. CHAPMAN and the other Rufus DOWNS who was a tanner at Mexico.  In 1835 the farm was sold and the family moved to Mexico.  In March, 1817, they moved to the farm of 150 acres one-half mile east of Phoenix, which is still in the family, now being owned by a son of Mr. CANDEE, Charles E., who bought the place of his father twenty years ago.  The latter is in hopes that the place which has been only five or six years out of the family since 1837, shall pass down to future generations.

   Charles W. CANDEE divided his childhood days between working on the farm and attending the district school.  On Feb 3, 1847, he married Ann H. MARSH of Whitesboro, NY, and in 1849 he bought the farm his father had owned near Phoenix.  The latter died in August, 1862, 71 years old, and his wife in Dec. 1877, 84 years old.  In  1841 and ’42 Charles W. was in the grocery  business in Phoenix with Orange CHAPPEL, their store standing on the site of the HOWARD house.  His first wife died Oct. 29, 1893, and on Dec. 31, 1896 Mr. CANDEE married Mrs. Antoinette FRANCENE CHEEVER, the daughter of Allen HICKS of Seneca Falls.  When Mr. CANDEE sold the farm to his son he moved into the village, and built the house in which he now resides, his purchase containing forty acres which he had surveyed and largely cut into village lots, opening Bridge street through from Barnes to Lock street, and erecting additional dwellings on Bridge and Lock streets.  Mr. CANDEE served as supervisor in 1864 and has also served as commissioner of highways and poormaster.  He was one of the incorporators of the Oswego and Onondaga Insurance Co., and for many years has been an active member of the Congregational church, of which he is the oldest deacon now living, having been such since 1854. During the war Mr. CANDEE was chairman of the town committee to fill the town quota required under several calls of the president for troops, of which D. D. McKOON and Edmund MERRY were members.  He was also called to sit with Judge TYLER at Oswego to enforce the drafts of 1863, which to him, as to all good union men, was a trying time.  The children by his first wife are Mary (Mrs. J. W. LOOMIS) of Phoenix, who was married in1873, Charles E., who married Elizabeth BOLI in 1881 and Huldah (deceased) who married Fred W. LYONS in 1879 and lived in Jersey City until her death.

     The Reminiscences of Charles W. CANDEE are interesting as relating to the period when the chief product of the farms along the Oneida and Seneca Rivers was wood, which was carried to Salt Point (Salina) on crafts that plied on those streams.  The hard wood, chiefly hemlock, beech and maple, was required for making salt.  The farmers, miles away from the rivers leased such frontage as they needed where they could cord up their wood as convenient as possible for loading on the boats.  The winter season was occupied in getting their wood to the river, where it was piled up usually 16 feet high and sometimes in as many as twenty tiers.  The wood brought from $2 to $3 a cord at Salina.  Several farms were cleared with considerable profit to their owners. 

  Candee Family Bible Records